Kristine Smithhttp://www.kristine-smith.com
Taking notes along the wayMon, 02 Feb 2015 19:02:21 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1Snowhttp://www.kristine-smith.com/index.php/2015/02/snow-3/
http://www.kristine-smith.com/index.php/2015/02/snow-3/#commentsMon, 02 Feb 2015 19:01:31 +0000http://www.kristine-smith.com/?p=1939Yes, it did. 14.5 inches officially, according to the recording station nearest me. Turned out to be the fifth largest snowstorm in Chicago history, with an official O’Hare tally of 19.3 inches.

The wind pushed things around and made them pretty uneven. The roof looks like someone did a really messy job of frosting a cake with stiff frosting, thanks to the wind. Meanwhile, 7-8 inches in some parts of my driveway, well over a foot in others. A foot and a half or so up against the garage and of course, at the end of the driveway thanks to the snowplows. Behemoth chewed through it all, bless his 2-stage heart. I just wish he didn’t handle like a bus with flat tires.

After I finished the driveway, I dug out the front steps and the rear sidewalk. Part of the deck. This way, Herself has plenty of room to maneuver. She was the little supervisor through all this.

supervising

We are apparently supposed to get a few more inches Tuesday evening, which will be just dandy. Not sure when I will be able to take Gaby for a walk. The park district usually plows the bike trail, but I doubt that it’s a priority at the present time.

Stay safe and warm, if the storm hit you or is headed in your direction. If you avoided this brush with Old Man Winter, well, lucky you.

Over on Facebook, Lynn Flewelling posted a link to an article about how pre-soaking beans prior to cooking was unnecessary. I perked up when I read it because I love bean soups and stews, but never made them because of the soaking step. Slow overnight soak or fast one-hour boil and soak? If you don’t do it right, you’ll wind up with bullets. It didn’t help that the one time I presoaked navy beans for baked beans, they came out hard and gritty. I just didn’t think I’d have success if I tried again.

But this article gave me hope, so. I found the recipe for black bean stew and set about chopping the onion because I knew I had a pound bag of black beans in the pantry. Except that when I looked, I found I didn’t. I did have a pound of navy beans. A year-old pound of navy beans–I remembered the day I bought them at Whole Paycheck, the good little organic shopper shoveling her beans into a bag…then sticking them on a shelf and forgetting about them. I knew beans aged and got tough over time, but I figured that all I risked was half an onion and some time. It was either try to cook the beans or use them as crust ballast for blind baking…except that I already had a couple of pounds of dried beans set aside for that purpose, yet more navy and pinto beans that I bought with every intention of cooking and never did.

Anyway, along with the onion, garlic, and chopped dried chile pepper, I added a teaspoon of ajwain (an Indian seed that flavors and also mitigates that issue with beans that we all sang about in second grade**), some herbs de provence, diced sun-dried tomatoes, celery seed. I didn’t add bay leaf because I didn’t have any, hence the other stuff.

La:

just getting started

Heated until it just started to simmer, then covered it and stuck it in a 325F oven. I figured that navy beans might take longer to cook than black beans, and I was right. I let them cook for close to two hours before adding the salt, checking them all the while–yes, they were absorbing liquid. Yes, they were getting softer:

getting there–about halfway through

After about three hours, I made tuna fish for dinner because I realized that the beans wouldn’t be done in time. Besides, anything stew benefits from sitting overnight, and I figured this would be the case with this stuff as well. I added salt and pepper–about 2 tsps salt instead of the single one called for in the recipe. Stirred and stuck it back in the oven.

At the three-three-and-a-half hour mark–the beans were still intact but creamy when chewed–I zapped the stew with the immersion blender and creamed maybe 1/3 of them.

almost finished

I also added a large squirt of ketchup because I always add ketchup to navy bean soup, and a tablespoon of vegetable demiglace because frankly I still found things a little flat. Then I let it cool and stuck it in the fridge overnight.

Today, I added a can of Ro-Tel diced tomatoes and a little more salt. It is a very thick stew–if you wanted something more soupy, you could add stock or more diced tomatoes or water. I like it thick, so I heated some up in the microwave, stuck some cheddar cheese on top, and had it with a toasted roll.

the finished product

It’s good. Yes, the beans have more flavor than canned or–from what I recall–presoaked. I was also struck by how well they remained intact even though they were very tender. Not mushy at all. Or gritty.

I bought black beans today, as well as lentils and white beans. Looking forward to making more no-soak bean dishes. They will need to cook longer, so I will have to be careful which recipes I try.

**also, Blazing Saddles

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http://www.kristine-smith.com/index.php/2014/12/1925/#commentsTue, 30 Dec 2014 20:33:31 +0000http://www.kristine-smith.com/?p=1925Hope everyone had a good holiday. Happy New Year’s Eve Eve! Tonight it will be 27 years since the fire that my dad had going in the fireplace licked through gaps in the mortar and set the rear of the house on fire. I had just closed on the place two weeks prior–another five minutes, and I’d have lost it. Instead, I had insurance company hassles–no-name insurance, just don’t do it–and major outlay for a new, BUILT TO CODE, fireplace.

27 years. Some events always seem…more recent. And always will.

One week until GIDEON hits the shelves–the Alex Gordon half of this one-person writing team will be busy. Check over there for details and appearances etc if you’re interested. The next few months will be spent working on JERICHO, the follow-up to GIDEON, as well as comic con appearances and working on getting the Jani Kilian books into ebook format and cleaning out the house as part of the long-term move-across-the-country prep. General everyday life will get tucked into the spaces.

I thought that after I left the day job I would have all this extra time. Ha.

2015 is almost here. The time, does it ever fly.

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http://www.kristine-smith.com/index.php/2014/12/still-here-2/#commentsSat, 06 Dec 2014 03:31:48 +0000http://www.kristine-smith.com/?p=1922Still trying to figure out the best way to mesh the Alex Gordon and Kristine Smith websites–shift Alex over here, or shift Kris over there? Thing is, I write different stuff under each name. Kristine writes SF/F while Alex writes present day supernatural thriller/paranormal. So I don’t think I want the sites to have the same style, font etc, which would mean sticking with what I have now–two sites, two blogs.

It would also mean cutting back on posting here until I have News. I will say that I am slowly learning how to format Word files for conversion to e-books. I will also say that even after using Word in various forms for over 20 years at the day job and the writing job, it still finds ways to irritate and confound.

Next week I’ll be spending a few days at a writing retreat with friends. Yes, there will be eating and wine and bitching about business, but also work. Sometimes taking a break from regular routine does wonders to jumpstart balky wips.

Life stuff going on. I switched insurance carriers a couple of weeks ago, and have been dealing with the incoming paperwork. Should be receiving the income tax packet from my accountant any day now. Pulling together and tabulating receipts–one of my least favorite things ever.

And now, on a happier note, time to write Christmas cards….

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http://www.kristine-smith.com/index.php/2014/11/thanksgiving/#commentsThu, 27 Nov 2014 05:26:49 +0000http://www.kristine-smith.com/?p=1910It’s Thanksgiving here in the States tomorrow. Happy Day to all who celebrate.

Alex Gordon has had all the announcements lately, and I hope that if you enjoy paranormal horror/supernatural suspense, that you check out my alter ego. I do have a bit of news–I will be joining the roster of Bookview Cafe authors. My official launch won’t be until next year, when my first release is ready to go. I am planning a reissue of Code of Conduct. It will have new artwork, and I will be going through the text and tweaking all those bits that slipped past me the first time.

The fun part will be extracting the electronic file from my oldest external drive. I used PCs until 2004 , and IIRC I wrote Code using Microsoft Works. I may still have some 3″ floppies. And I am pretty sure that I have an external floppy disk drive for my ancient iBook, so I could open the file there and send it to the MacBook….

I just hope I can read the damned thing.

In any case, tomorrow, I will be eating roast chicken–not a fan of turkey–and stuffing with all the trimmings. Then, for the next few months, I will be working on JERICHO, the follow-up to GIDEON.

And yes, this split personality thing feels weird.

]]>http://www.kristine-smith.com/index.php/2014/11/thanksgiving/feed/0In which all is revealed….http://www.kristine-smith.com/index.php/2014/10/in-which-all-is-revealed/
http://www.kristine-smith.com/index.php/2014/10/in-which-all-is-revealed/#commentsThu, 16 Oct 2014 07:31:39 +0000http://www.kristine-smith.com/?p=1907Every so often over the last few years, a fan of the Jani books would email me and ask if I was working on anything new. I always appreciated these messages, even though I never gave much of an answer.

Thank you for writing…I’m working on a few things, and as soon as I have news of anything new, I will post….

And that would be it. When I did post here, I wrote about cooking, gardening, my dogs. Life in general. About writing and works-in-progress, though, not so much. A couple of short stories saw the light of day. Other vague rumblings.

Well, I’m very happy to announce that there’s news, and it’s not so vague. This is me, too. And I have a book coming out in January–1/6/2015 to be exact. Info, synopses, pertinent links, etc, are all available at the Alex Gordon site.

I’m excited, and glad to at last be able to let folks know about GIDEON. It is a different genre–supernatural suspense/paranormal with dashes of horror and romance. Some Illinois history. It challenged me in many ways, this tale–I felt like I was starting from scratch as a writer. Writing present day. Needing to get streets and neighborhoods right…then needing to cut it all out because it slowed down the tale. The things that required the most research were the things I wound up cutting–maybe there’s a lesson in there somewhere.

Why “Alex Gordon?” It was picked a few years ago. Gordon was my dad’s name, and Alex went well with it. As it turned out, there were a few other folks with that name, including a baseball player whose team is doing rather well at the moment. I’m not him.

I don’t think there’s much more to add, but I’m happy to answer questions. Closer to the release date, I will be posting GIDEON excerpts and outtakes in conjunction with the Harper Voyager site. Until then, I will be working on JERICHO, the followup. Eventually, I will update this website and either integrate or link it with the Alex Gordon site. “Kristine Smith” the writer isn’t gone–if and when I get the Jani books out as ebooks or write more SF/F, it will be under that name. The paranormal/thriller/suspense work is Alex’s. For the sake of simplicity, I will move all my blogging to the Alex Gordon site, so that all the cooking, gardening, and dog updates can be combined with the book and convention news.

And now, it’s late, and I need to get some sleep. The cable just went south in the middle of THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH–thank you Comcast!–so the house is very quiet. In a few hours, I’ll get up and start thinking about pacing and scaring people and which plants grow in Oregon’s Northern Coast Range. Same god, different mountain top.

Thanks again to those of you who wondered, and asked. Glad I’m finally able to tell you what’s been going on.

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http://www.kristine-smith.com/index.php/2014/09/still-here/#commentsThu, 11 Sep 2014 02:29:27 +0000http://www.kristine-smith.com/?p=1901Summer has zipped by. I’ve been having work done around the house–deck repaired and stained, dishwasher installed. Thought I’d catch a break for a bit, but the handyman called this evening–he has an opening, so he’ll be by tomorrow to fix one of the walls in the bathroom and repair some tile. So I cleaned out the cabinet that is going to be removed, then vacuumed because doesn’t everyone clean before workmen come to the house?

Oh well. It upsets the day, but it has to get done.

Nothing to report on the reissue of CODE etc as ebooks. Struggling with some short works–I start them, and think, who would want to read this? It’s been done before. The thing is, just about everything has been done before–I could write a one-sentence synopsis and likely be able to think of several already-published stories that fit it. And they would all be different. Because it isn’t the idea, it’s the execution.

If I keep telling myself this, I might come to believe it.

]]>http://www.kristine-smith.com/index.php/2014/09/still-here/feed/0In exilehttp://www.kristine-smith.com/index.php/2014/07/in-exile/
http://www.kristine-smith.com/index.php/2014/07/in-exile/#commentsTue, 29 Jul 2014 23:49:08 +0000http://www.kristine-smith.com/?p=1895This morning at 4am or thereabouts, the first skunking of the season.

Herself was exiled to the deck after a scrub-down with Natures Miracle. She spent the day at puppy playcare being deskunked (read: fussed over by the groomers, who adore her). Then she got to play with her buddies for a few hours.

Almost a year since I retired from the day job, and I don’t miss it a bit. I’ve been dealing with house repairs, though not as quickly as I would like. The worst job, going through all the worldly goods and disposing of what I no longer want or need, has been a slow go. I did get rid of a mess o’ unwanted weed killer, non-organic lawn care stuff, and acrylic paint a couple of months ago, but clothes, books, collectibles, furniture and assorted junk remain unsorted. Last summer I said I would do it during the winter, and during the winter I said I would attack it in the spring. Now, July is winding down. I did schedule some decks repairs–the guy who started the work last fall never finished and wouldn’t return my calls, so I needed to find someone else. That contractor will also be doing some work on my cupboards so I can finally get a dishwasher installed, which will be cause for much excitement in the realm.

As for the junk, it will get sorted. It has to. But I’m not looking forward to it.

Seven years today since my mom passed. I am not an anniversary/memorial person as a rule, for whatever that says about me. But today I had to do a lot of running around in the area around the hospital where mom was treated and the hospice in which she passed, and it got to me. Memories of driving from hospital to hospital to pick up records or to restaurants to pick up treats that she said she wanted and then wouldn’t eat–the spirit was willing, but the appetite was no longer there.

A restless day.

No updates concerning Jani e-bbok conversions. I thought I had something set up, but that may have fallen through. I may need to simply buckle down and do it myself.

Currently playing in the background is an old episode of Rick Steve’s Europe. Tuscany and Umbria. So gorgeous.